Merle grew up in a small village in an entrepreneurial household, where she worked alongside her parents from an early age and took on responsibility at a young age. Leadership and commitment have shaped her career ever since – whether as an active official at Rotary International or, during her school days, as a group leader and member of the training team for the Scouts, with whom she also undertook international trips. Her enthusiasm for other cultures and scientific curiosity led Merle to spend a semester abroad at the renowned Wageningen University (Netherlands) as part of her biology studies in Göttingen, Tübingen, and Braunschweig, as well as to conduct research at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. She completed her master's thesis and doctoral dissertation in evolutionary biotechnology in the working group of Nobel Prize winner Manfred Eigen at what is now the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen. Merle then spent over 25 years as a business developer in technology transfer, focusing on financing and market entry. During this time, she supported over 500 high-tech start-ups, technology-oriented companies, ministries, and innovation organizations. She is the co-founder of eight high-tech start-ups and has received numerous awards for her commitment, including the Public Value Award 2024! In 2021, Merle founded the Berlin-based biotech start-up PRAMOMOLECULAR together with two other experts. The company develops novel gene silencing therapies for the targeted elimination of disease-relevant oncogenic and metabolic proteins in extrahepatic tissues – with the aim of effectively treating difficult-to-treat diseases such as lung or pancreatic cancer.